


Hourglass

by erericultist



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Eren’s Birthday, M/M, Manga Spoilers, One Shot, Short Story, but ode to him anyways, canonverse, eren x levi - Freeform, erenxlevi - Freeform, ereri, he not dead tho lol, in memory of Eren Jaeger, levi x eren - Freeform, levixeren - Freeform, riren - Freeform, rivaere - Freeform, snk 105 to present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 06:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18277733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erericultist/pseuds/erericultist
Summary: A Veteran and a Judas.Both with one foot in the same grave.Hand in hand, hoping to not let go.Yet their paths slowly pull them apart...





	Hourglass

**Author's Note:**

> You’ve changed a lot in such a short amount of time, Eren. We hold the person you used to be fondly— and dearly— in our hearts. The man you have become to exact your goals is not a feat we all can do. You’re ripping everything up by the roots, and becoming something else entirely for your perception of the greater good. I wrote this in somber memory of the more naive man you used to be, but also a sense of acceptance... for the one you have become. I can’t quite put a label on you now, other than I can weep or be proud of you. You’re drifting away from everyone for this, yet your Captain holds on so desperately, more so than anyone else. Levi’s efforts nearly costed him his life, and we know naught of what is to come next.   
> This is for you, Eren, and from my perception— the love you and Levi are forbidden from sharing in this life.  
> I hope you will reach happiness by the end of this all. Happy Birthday, Eren Jaeger.

Eren’s fingers trace the porcelain of Levi’s cheeks... his thumb grazing over smooth, unblemished flesh to finding the tread of battle along his face; marring his right side. It’s appearance accentuates the presumption of pain, and agony deeper then the initial wound itself. It is pink, silvery and violet like the facets of a crystal. Jagged edges cutting through skin and leaving a deep indent. Sparse on the left side, there are gashes left from debris, marked like diamonds on the back of a playing card.   
  


One of Levi’s eyes are split through the pupil; once perilous ice fogged over by the healing and left in the dark. No longer capable of holding a glint of bloodlust in battle or fondness when directed to Eren in private. Empty. Just empty.   
  


Eren’s nose stings, and Levi’s remaining eye stares at him blankly. There is still a smolder of life, beneath a melancholy and serene front, it is deep anguish. Hope, perhaps something that Eren would consider a confinement, is so freeing in Levi’s eye and somehow grounding. His hope and relentlessness haunts Eren.   
  


Levi’s hope that Eren will return to him, will obey like he did— what feels like—ages ago. An instrument of the greater good, rather than the orchestrator.    
  


Levi leans into the touch fondly, closing his eyes and rubbing his cheek into his lover’s palm. “You cannot afford to weep,” he murmurs, voice low and hoarse like the steady grind of grain against slate.    
Eren didn’t notice until Levi mentioned it; that tears had begun to roll down his cheeks silently.    
  


“Ah,” Eren winces at the realization, rubbing a tear away with a knuckle and flicking it like filth. His silver eyes that have such little pigment, are now reddened with waterworks and lined with dewy lashes. His plans were to push away all his loved ones and shut them out. Protect them this way, by hurting them the most so they won’t be in pain when Eren does exactly what he intends.    
  


Levi is the only one he cannot push away, the one that he can’t seem to uproot. Compelled by a force within him that not even the elimination of every last drop of humanity and suppression of compassion could overpower. He has always been a form of guidance to Eren, the one he can peer into the eyes of and not sense any doubt. Eren cannot be devoid of Levi, he couldn’t even bring himself to try.    
  


He finds himself seeking solace and comfort in Levi’s embrace, there were nights spent in damp cells and candlelight; the environment never changed the tender and warm tingling sensation of when Levi would run his fingers through his hair. Or cramped, underground passages, dim alleyways, desolations in the wilderness. He keeps this to himself so not even his brother or Floch are aware— though no one can deny that Zeke must have an inkling— as anyone does.    
  


Levi’s allegiance resides with the legion, or furthermore his promise to Erwin and care for Hanji, his uncle and his past. Their paths have diverged, his and Eren’s, yet they manage to still cross. Levi is a devout lover, with the upmost loyalty. Even when Eren could spit on the fealty his family brought forth to him, he admonishes himself for selfishly being unable to do the same to Levi.    
  


Levi always believed in him. Always reassured Eren that his decisions have value, a form of support from a man so elusive and admirable that is virtually unattainable. And now, as history repeats itself, his choice ultimately hurts Levi. Just like before, in the Forest of Giant Trees. With Annie tailing them and ruthlessly annihilating one scout after the other, his decision to be missing in action costed the squad— in his point of view— and devastated Levi. Not that Levi showed it, but the pain of looking upon their lifeless bodies still replays behind his ghostly, blind eye. The grief of Petra, Oulo, Eld and Gunther is only a small fraction of it all.   
  


Eren bumps foreheads with Levi, palm slipping behind Levi’s ear. Their surrounding is dim, lantern light mingled with moonlight. Eren allows his eyes to drift shut to be consumed in his own darkness. They shift together in sync for Eren’s nose to brush against Levi’s. “I did this to you,” Eren rasps, nearly voiceless, on the brink of so much emotion.   
  


Crumpled paper tumbles past them with the drift of wind against the grey, cobble pathway. They’re in a place that borders a forest, where barbed wire fences jangle, broken and rusted with age, encompass the abandoned citadel. It is a place dating before the separation of peoples and titans. Eren and Levi dubbed it ‘home’. In dead memory of the place they never did, and never will have. 

 

Half of the building is burrowed tunnels beneath the hill, but the part they stand in front of resembles an alleyway with two buildings on either side of them. The lamp is Levi’s, propped against the wall on a bamboo stick and some rope.   
  


The place Eren is going, Levi cannot follow much longer. Levi wants to deny it, grasping Eren by the hands and squeezing them subtly. Hands stained with blood, invisible to the naked eye, marked by the soul. Levi brings Eren’s knuckles up to his lips, pressing gently and holding him there. He can hear Eren’s breath shallow across from him.   
  


He kisses these hands every time they meet, no matter the blood nor sin they accumulate. He is never in a rush, for their time is precious, so he uses now to relish. He glances up slowly, meeting eyes with Eren. The silver of his gaze glimmers brilliantly with just a hint of compassion and remorse, yet he tries so violently to shake that and cover it. But the whites are pink and red with emotion, tears, fraying the facade he so intricately twines up for everyone else.   
  


Levi releases his hold on Eren, who bites his lip with a sniffle. His lips are flushed, from ear to ear and at the rims of his eyes. For the first time in a long time, he looks young again. Innocent. Perhaps that is just Levi’s imagination— hence he never truly looked like that— but all his work to bring freedom and eliminate the person he used to be has surfaced something he always lacked.    
  


“Would you still want to look upon me, even if he took the other eye?”   
  


“Yes.” Levi answers without hesitation.   
  


“How would you?” Eren uses his sleeve to dry off his cheeks.   
  


“I just would. I would see you as I do now, because it is all I have.”   
  


Eren’s jaw tightens, and somehow he appears to loom over Levi taller than he had before. A cloud shifted out of the moonlight— only highlighting Eren’s silhouette even more. They stand there in silence for a fair bit, as Eren composes himself. Levi listens to the wind, it’s path through the trees, its howl against empty fortress walls, and flicker at his lantern flame. It’s pressure on his body is somehow crushing to his chest, and he knows it is not the bandages at his ribs to be at fault.   
  


It’s telling him to go.   
  


Levi always dirties his lips, all for Eren,  only to drape a coat of lies on his speech when asked about where, why and when he has been. He will do so time and time again, and yet he feels that it is coming to a close. It is assured Eren does as well, which is why he cries. Not only for them, but for everything. They knew his time was limited from the start. Everything is coming to a finality, and this life will be sacrificed.   
  


“I don’t want to see you again,” Levi drawls, and he can feel Eren’s gaze piercing him.   
  


There’s a pause.   
  


“I don’t want to see you unless I can kiss your hands again,” Levi traces the scar that marred his eye, blinking away what droplets of sorrow fall from that dead eye. It cannot see joy or beauty, yet it manages to weep. He reaches up, clapping his three-fingered hand on the back of Eren’s neck. He brings Eren down to his height, and Eren only whimpers under his breath with a wince. He holds Eren just behind his ear and sifting fingers into his long hair… 

 

“Return to me, not as a soldier or a king. But as you, a man, not rebel nor beast.”   
  


Eren swallows hard with a shaky breath, nodding with his forehead touching Levi’s. They drift closer for lips to graze, hesitant but yearning for the familiar taste of one another.

**Author's Note:**

> I have more smutty intentions of possibly revisiting this one shot, less realistic scenario but something to feed my aching heart. Good thing I’m a sucker for love tragedies, because that is exactly how I perceive them currently.


End file.
